By Krystal Smalley
ksmalley@wbcowqel.com
It seems like a scene straight out of Fahrenheit 451 or 1984: caution tape strung across books hidden inside paper bags and signs proclaiming restricted access.
Displays like this are up in libraries across America this week for Banned Book Week, a national movement started in 1982 to draw awareness to the harms of censorship and to promote the freedom to be able choose what to read.
A display of banned books – from Sophie’s Choice and One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest to The Kite Runner and Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl – along with information about Banned Books Week has taken center stage at the Bucyrus Public Library this week.
“Mostly Banned Books Week is to make people aware of censorship,” explained Bucyrus Library Director Brenda Crider.
Often people who protest certain books – like Sherman Alexie’s wildly popular young adult novel The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian or John Steinbeck’s classic Of Mice and Men – will picket libraries or bring up disputes at school board meetings. Sometimes those protests end with books being pulled from shelves, though that has yet to happen at the local library.
“We have never taken books off the shelves,” Crider said. “We don’t promote censorship here.”
The Bucyrus library will, however, review requests to have books moved from one section to another, such as when the content falls more along the lines of adult fiction rather than young adult. Crider noted that the library rarely has anything challenged and if they don’t have a certain book within their catalog, they would get it from another library that does carry it.
Heather Tiffany, Children’s Librarian at the Galion Public Library, was not aware of any books having been banned there, though they sometimes have patrons ask why a book is located in a certain section. She believed Banned Books Week plays an important role for libraries.
“To make people aware that a library represents intellectual freedom,” Tiffany explained. “Our goal is not to censor for people.”
She added that people are often surprised when one of their favorite books appears on a banned books list.
Banned Books Week, which focused on young adults books this year, runs from Sept. 27 to Oct. 3. More information about Banned Books Week can be found at www.bannedbooksweek.org or www.ala.org./bbooks.